Cantor Backs Citizenship for Some Undocumented Children

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, pauses during a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
said he backs legal residence and citizenship for people brought
to the U.S. illegally as children while Congress held its first
hearing this year on rewriting immigration law.

The Virginia Republican announced his change of position as
President Barack Obama and bipartisan groups in Congress work on
principles for an immigration overhaul.

“A good place to start is with the kids,” Cantor said in
a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington
group that favors smaller government. “One of the great
founding principles of our country was that children would not
be punished for the mistakes of their parents.”

“It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence
and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as
children and who know no other home,” he said.

Cantor was among 160 House Republicans who voted against
such legislation in 2010 when it passed the House, then
controlled by Democrats. That measure, known as the Dream Act,
died in the Senate.

Cantor said he was “pleased” that the discussions in
Congress “make border security, employment verification and
creating a workable guest worker program an immediate
priority.” He said it is “the right thing to do for our
families, for our security, and for our economy.”

House Republicans were weakened by Obama’s November re-election and Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Obama
campaigned on a pledge to seek a rewrite of immigration laws and
touted the Dream Act. He won 71 percent of Hispanic votes in the
election, leading Republicans to re-examine their stance on
immigration.

Citizenship Path

The 2010 legislation would have provided a path to
citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants who came to
the U.S. before age 16, stayed at least five years and earned a
college degree or served in the military.

Cantor announced his stance on the Dream Act as fellow
House Republicans at a Judiciary Committee hearing argued
against a Democratic proposal for a path to citizenship for 11
million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including adults.

Idaho Republican Raul Labrador, a member of a bipartisan
group of House members trying to craft an immigration measure,
said legalized status short of citizenship is a more practical
and politically achievable goal in the Republican-run House.

Labrador, a former immigration lawyer, said that among his
clients, “not very many people told me ‘I want to be a citizen,
I have to be a citizen.’” Still, he said House Republicans may
be able to build a consensus around allowing citizenship to
those who came to the U.S. as children.

‘Right Things’

“I want to treat those kids fairly who came here through
no fault of their own,” Labrador told reporters. “They are now
either in the military or in college, that are doing the right
things, that are abiding by the law.”

Labrador, who became a House member in 2011, said he
wouldn’t have supported the 2010 Dream Act written by Democrats
because it provided “too many exceptions.”

California Republican Darrell Issa said there is
“widespread support for finding some solution to those who were
ultimately hurt by a broken system.”

Congress must craft a statute that will make the proper
distinction because “15-year-olds come over the border from
Guatemala every day,” Issa said. “Are they children under the
Dream Act or are they simply young illegal immigrants?”

Effective Enforcement

South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, chairman of the
panel’s immigration subcommittee, said when Congress rewrote
immigration law in 1986 it didn’t ensure effective enforcement
against illegal immigration and gave amnesty to millions of
undocumented people in the country at the time.

“We have traveled this road before,” he said. “In 1986
we are told that immigration was settled once and for all. The
country got amnesty but is still waiting 35 years later for
border security and employer verification.”

“The stumbling block for everybody is the pathway to
citizenship,” Texas Republican Blake Farenthold said at the
hearing.

Asked about Cantor’s speech, Farenthold said citizenship
for people who were brought to the country as children is “a
whole lot easier than the bigger question” of giving the
population of undocumented immigrants a pathway to that status.

Common Ground

Republican opposition “stems from not wanting to reward
folks who broke the law, and you can’t hold a child or toddler
accountable for what their parents do,” Farenthold said in an
interview. “That’s easier to find common ground on.”

Today, Obama sought to rally business support for his
immigration proposals at a White House meeting with a dozen
chief executive officers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s
Lloyd Blankfein and Yahoo! Inc.’s Marissa Mayer.

Obama is pushing Congress to act by mid-year on immigration
legislation that would include a path to citizenship for many of
the undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

“I couldn’t think of a better topic that will galvanize a
lot of the resources necessary in the country to improve the
competitive effectiveness of U.S. business,” Motorola Solutions
Inc. Chief Executive Officer Greg Brown said as he headed into
the meeting.